Chapter Seventeen

Remember that Thursday appointment?

It was at Addison School for the Blind in Columbia.

“Most students only attend Addison School for a year or two,” the director said, as Mom, Dad, and I sat in her crisp, white office. “We make sure our students not only are up to par academically with other students their age, but that they’ve mastered life skills. Everything from being able to navigate a new town to grocery shopping and ordering at a restaurant.”

“And that’s something students can pick up in a year?” asked Mom, leaning forward like a child about to receive a prize.

“Yes,” the director answered. She had told me her name—Mrs. Something or Other—but it floated right out of my mind the moment she shared it. She had gray hair slicked back in a perfect bun and her desk was completely clear except for a vase filled with pink roses and a laptop. “We make sure that they do.”

I stared out the window. This place, it was pretty amazing. Some of the students were totally blind and deaf. On the way in, I saw a couple kids with scars where their eyes should be. These kids, I could understand them needing a special school. But me? It made my stomach’s insides feel slippery, like I was a fraud. I wasn’t blind enough to need a special school. I mean, I could get around.

But here was Mom, with Dad nodding just beside her, shocked that I could learn to someday go to the grocery store by myself. Did that really surprise them? Why?

I squeezed my eyes shut and thought about it. Mom would drop me off at the store. No, scratch that. If I were independent, I’d have to find my own way. I squeezed my eyes tighter and erased the scene. This time, I walked up to the grocery store using my cane. I grabbed a cart. I shook my head, even though I knew I probably looked crazy to everyone else, and cleared the scene again. I couldn’t take a cart if I had walked there. The most I’d be able to carry home would be what I could hold in a basket. So I pictured myself slipping the basket up my arm. Now, I needed some apples. I walked down the aisles, finding the apple row. I put a few in a bag and added it to my basket. Next, I wanted some hamburgers. I made my way to the meat department and stood in front of the packages of hamburger. I know Mom always checked the dates, which I guess were on the label. I imagined myself doing the same but soon had to clear the scene again. The print was too small. I couldn’t make it out.

I pictured myself moving on to finding a certain spice—let’s say cilantro—in the spice aisle. The spices were stacked on the highest shelf. I couldn’t get close enough to read the labels.

Is this what it would be like? Or was I being too doom and gloom? How would this school help me get to where I needed to be? They wouldn’t make labels bigger or shelves shorter. They wouldn’t make me able to drive a car or see which apple was the freshest. It was pointless.

I folded over and rested my head against my knees while my parents and the director spoke. Like they suddenly remembered I existed—I was, after all, the entire reason we were there—the three of them turned to face me.

“Alice?” Dad asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t belong here,” I said under my breath, but they heard.

“What makes you say that?” Director Whatever-Her-Name-Is asked.

“I’m not that blind.” I sat up straighter and glared at Mom and Dad. I was sure my nerves were making my eyes bob like crazy but my voice was steady. I didn’t even realize it until then, but I had taken the gnome Mr. Hamlin had given me out of my pocket and was clutching it. The elf’s pointy hat dug into my palm. “I can get around on my own already. I can read books—regular books. So what if I hold them closer? I don’t want to go to this school.”

Mom shifted in her seat and Dad started muttering things about me being rude.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Director Whatever-Her-Name-Is. “Your school is beautiful. It’s amazing, it really is. It’s just not for me.”

“Why don’t you take a tour and then decide?” the director asked.

We started in the gardens. The school was in the middle of a park, with rose gardens and acres of vibrant green grass.

“What’s the point?” I trailed behind Mom and Dad, taking sluggish steps around a koi pond. “It’s not like the kids who go here can see the goldfish.” They were huge goldfish but still only orange blurs in the dark water.

The tour guide stopped midsentence. Her unseeing eyes might not have focused on my face, but the way she clipped off her words left no doubt that she could go toe-to-toe with me on surliness. “The point is that beauty can be enjoyed by anyone willing to notice it. Yes, I might not see the fish. But I can feel the water with my fingers and toes. I can hear them gulp at food when I feed them. I can smell the musty, wet odor of the pond, the cold stone of the bridge. I can create the beauty with my mind. Can you?”

Mom’s face flushed bright red. Dad grumbled something, but I didn’t hear it. My mind was stuck on the tour guide’s last phrase: “Create the beauty with my mind.”

My feet moved a little faster.

When we got inside the sleek school, the tour guide—her name was Jessica (all the teachers went by their first name here)—called over a student. “Alice, I’d like you to meet Richie, a soon-to-be seventh grader.”

Richie was about as tall as James with orange red hair and so many freckles even I could see them. His eyes were warm and brown. Richie smiled and held out his hand for me to shake. Let’s just say Richie wasn’t a big fan of personal space. He stood a couple inches too close to me, making me question suddenly if the onions on the turkey sandwich I had for lunch had been a good idea. “Name’s Richie, but only teachers call me that. Everyone else calls me Ryder,” he said. Ryder’s eyes swept over me, head to toe.

Wait a second. His eye swept over me. The other eye? It didn’t move.

Now, I’ve had plenty of experience with people staring weirdly at my eyes, so I tried not to do the same. Plus, Jessica introduced Ryder as a student. At a school for the blind. So of course something was wrong with his eyes. Or eye. Whatever. I wasn’t going to stare.

“Ryder, why don’t you show Alice around the computer lab while her family reviews some paperwork?” Jessica suggested.

“Sure.” Ryder grabbed my wrist. “Follow me.”

“I can follow on my own,” I snapped.

“I know.” But he didn’t let go of my hand.

The lab was filled with computers screens as big as our television. Ryder showed me how they magnified books. I couldn’t wipe away my smile when I realized I could sit back in my chair and still read the books. Seriously, sit back. “Pretty cool, huh?” Ryder said.

He showed me how I could listen to thousands of books, and I thought of how I could keep up with Kerica’s book consumption. I learned about simpler things, too. Like a little stand I could put my books on that tilted the pages so they reflected less glare. I saw that none of the papers they used were white; they were all yellow or blue. “It helps curb visual fatigue,” Ryder said.

“Is that something you have trouble with?” I hinted. I mean, among visual impairments, albinism isn’t really fair. Everyone can tell. Other conditions, not so much.

“Nah,” Ryder said with a smile that was infuriating. He totally knew I was digging.

“How long have you been here?” I asked after the tour.

“About a year. I’ll go back to public in eighth grade.”

“Is that normal? To go back to public?”

“Afraid you’ll miss me?” Ryder cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t worry. I’ll be here for a year. I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

And to prove it, Ryder popped out his unmoving eye and held it in his palm.

I sucked in a gasp and squeezed my lips together to keep in a scream. I fought to make my face still even though I knew my eyes gave me up. Ryder casually put his artificial eye back in its socket.

“How long have you waited to use that line?” I asked, proud of my steady voice.

Ryder snorted. “Let’s see, my eye was removed when I was seven so . . . six years?”

“It’s a good joke. But it did make me feel a little ill. Do I look pale to you?” I held a white-as-paper hand in front of him.

“Maybe a little,” he laughed.

A little later, Ryder had shown me just about the entire school minus the dormitories. Some kids boarded here, but many—like me—lived close enough to commute.

“Can I ask you something kind of personal?” I said.

Ryder stopped midstride and sighed dramatically. “This happens all the time. Women meet me, fall instantly in love. But no, I can’t run away with you.”

“And most of the girls you meet are blind . . .”

“What’s your point, Porcelain?”

It was tough to keep my lips from twitching at that. “My question,” I said, “is about your eye.”

“This one?” Ryder pointed at his face. “Or this one?”

I grabbed his arm before he could pop the fake eye out again. “Stop!”

“Cancer, retinoblastoma. Basically tumors behind my eye.”

I nodded. “Yeah, but you have your other eye. So you’re not blind blind. What are you doing here?”

“You realize you just skipped over my whole cancer story, right? I mean, most people, they at least ask—”

“Sorry. But you’re not blind blind, right?” I shuddered a little, thinking about how horrible I was being. I hated, hated, hated when people questioned my blindness. Like because I could read or see when someone was in front of me I wasn’t really blind. Yet here I was drilling this boy I just met about why he was at a school for the blind. But I had to know.

“My other eye had a couple tumors. The treatment brought my vision to 20/60. Not bad, right? But since it’s my only eye, I wanted to make the most of it.”

“You wanted to come here?” I asked.

“I want to make the most of what I have.” Ryder crossed his arms. He stopped walking and stared at me straight on. “Let me ask you a personal question.”

I nodded.

“Why wouldn’t you want to go here?”

And you know what? I didn’t have one good reason.

That week, instead of hanging out at the library, Kerica and I spent most of our time outside the diner as Kerica added her mural to the window. She was so thorough, adding the outline and making sure the brushes were straight before dipping them into paint. I could tell she was concentrating and so I tried to be quiet.

All I could think about was that everything was about to end. The Bartel School for Girls opened in three days. Addison School for the Blind began next week. We wouldn’t have these long summer days anymore. It took me a long time to realize Kerica was looking at me instead of her artwork.

“Are you nervous?” she asked. I didn’t know if she was asking about starting a new school or about the essay contest. Finalists were going to be notified that night. A nod applied to both so that’s what I did.

“Don’t be. You’ll be fine. No matter what.” She leaned in and carefully painted in the letters for the word welcome.

I sat down on the sidewalk to watch. Sandi tapped on the glass from the opposite side of the window and waved. She had come along to watch Kerica, too, but quickly ducked inside to sit next to Mayor Hank. She was hoping he’d slip and say if she was a finalist in the contest, I think.

Things with Sandi were a little odd. It’s like she didn’t know how not to be a jerk and I didn’t know how to stay mad at her. Her mother had walked with her to the library the other day so she could check in with Mrs. Morris. Elizabeth McAllister had paused in front of where I was sitting. Her fists clenched and unclenched and I could feel her anger radiating off her just as clearly as I could feel love from my mom and dad when they were near me.

“Come on, Mom,” Sandi had coaxed, but her mother stayed put in front of me.

I braced myself, but all she said was a super crisp, “Thank you for helping Sandi with her essay.”

Surprised, my head jerked toward her. “You’re welcome,” I squeaked.

“I’m sure you’ll be keeping her . . . condition . . . to yourself.”

I nodded. For the first time in my life, I was glad I was blind so I didn’t have to see Sandi’s face.